This prison contains dens washed by the black mud from the waters of the Seine; it also possesses mysterious outlets, through which were formerly conducted to the river those miserable victims whom it was thought necessary to remove.
As seen in 1793, the Conciergerie, unwearying procureur for the scaffold,—the Conciergerie overflowed with occupants, who within an hour became the victims of the guillotine. At this epoch the old prison of Saint Louis was literally the Inn of Death. Under the arches some gates were hung, and at night a red lantern was suspended there, fit emblem of this abode of misery and despair.
The evening preceding the day when Lorin, Maurice, and Geneviève were breakfasting together, a dull rumbling shook the pavement of the quay and rattled the windows of the prison, then ceased before the arched gate. The gendarmes knocked with the handles of their swords, the gate opened, and a carriage entered the court; when the hinges had turned, and the rusty bolts had creaked, a female descended.
The gaping wicket opened immediately to receive her, and closed upon her. Three or four curious heads, protruding to gaze upon the prisoner by the light of the torches, appeared in mezzo-tinto, then vanished in the darkness, while vulgar jokes and rude laughter passed between the men leaving, who could be heard though not seen.
The person thus brought remained within the first wicket with the gendarmes; she saw it would be necessary to pass through a second, but forgot at the same time to raise the foot and lower the head, as there is a step to ascend and a beam which descends. The prisoner, not yet well habituated to prison architecture, notwithstanding her long sojourn there, omitted to stoop, and struck her forehead violently against the bar.
"Are you much hurt, Citizeness?" demanded one of the gendarmes.
"Nothing can hurt me now," she replied tranquilly, and passed on without uttering a single complaint, although sanguinary traces of the injury remained upon her brow.
Shortly the arm-chair of the keeper became visible,—a chair more venerated by the prisoners than the throne of the king by his courtiers; for the keeper of a prison is the dispenser of favor, and all mercy is important to a prisoner, as sometimes the smallest kindness may change the darkest gloom to a heaven of light.
The keeper Richard, installed in his arm-chair, felt a due perception of his own importance. He remained undisturbed even when the rumbling of the carriage announced a new arrival. He inhaled some snuff, regarded the prisoner, opened a large register, and looked for a pen in the little ink-horn of black wood, where the ink, incrusted on the sides, retained in the centre a mouldy humidity, as in the midst of the crater of a volcano there always remains some melted matter.
"Citizen Keeper," said the chief of the escort, "write, and write quickly, for they are impatiently awaiting us at the Commune."